Binswanger et l'analyse existentielle

In 1954, we published in French translation Le Rêve et l'Existence du psychiatrist suisse Ludwig Binswanger, accompanied by an introduction by Michel Foucault. The philosopher announces a "ulterior work" which "will try to situate existential analysis in the development of contemporary reflection on man". Foucault will never publish this book, but he has kept the manuscript presented here. He carries out a systematic examination of the "Daseinsanalyse", compares it with the approaches of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and phenomenology, and salutes his ambition to understand mental illness. This approach accompanies him in his quest for "something different from the traditional grids of psychiatric gaze", a "counterweight"; yet he already underlines its ambiguities and weaknesses, in particular a drift towards metaphysical speculation that moves away from the "concrete man".